Brian Henson
Brian Henson
Brian Hensonis an American puppeteer, director, producer, technician, and the chairman of The Jim Henson Company. He is the son of puppeteers Jim and Jane Henson...
ProfessionTV Producer
Date of Birth3 November 1963
CityNew York City, NY
challenges trying aspect
So that's the challenge, you have a big technical aspect of what you're doing whilst you're creatively trying to improvise.
style trying puppets
So while you're trying to improvise, you're also trying to puppeteer, you're doing everything that you need to do to perform a puppet in our style, for a camera.
real skills high-standards
And with puppets, especially in our company, we sort of demand a very high standard of puppetry, so it's a real technical skill.
class interesting rose
Patrick thought we should try to put an audience in front of one of the workshops, basically in front of the class and see how the performers rose to having an audience there, because he said, "You know, it's a really interesting test, because sometimes it gets even funnier."
fun puppets comedy
he puppeteers really responded to it. Patrick Bistrow really responded to it, it's great fun to do improve comedy with puppets.
scripts comedy kind
We kind of lost a lot of that and puppeteers were sticking to the script and we thought everything needed to get a lot funnier, so we thought we would go to a good improv comedy instructor.
class littles scripts
"Stuffed and Unstrung" started as a workshop, actually, classes within our company. We found that our puppeteers were not ad libbing as well as traditionally, Jim Henson Company puppeteers have. We're sort of famous for going off script a little bit and ad libbing.
fun littles los-angeles
I thought, well, if we're inviting an audience, let's do it right. So I put in a proper studio audience at our studios in Los Angeles and it was just a little showcase and it was just for fun.
book littles festivals
There was a producer from the Aspen Comedy Festival who happened to be there, as a friend of a friend, and she said, "I'd like to book you into the Aspen Comedy Festival," and we said, "Well, there isn't really a show to book in, this is just a little showcase and it's really our workshop." And she said, "No, it's great, I love it, just do exactly what you did."
puppets festivals aspens
We took a show to the Aspen Comedy Festival, called "Puppet Up" at that point, and in Aspen we just did three shows, and in Aspen, there was a producer from the Edinborough Fringe Festival, who said, "Please come to Edinborough."
festivals way momentum
we sent a troupe to Edinborough, and then in Edinborough, there was a producer from the Melbourne Comedy Festival, so we went to Melbourne. So it's one of these shows that kind of organically developed and it started developing momentum way before I even thought there was a show here.
puppets festivals comedy
And then after the success at Melbourne Comedy Festival, then we regrouped back in LA and we went back into workshopping and decided to develop a proper show and that's when we started working on "Stuffed and Unstrung," which is a much bigger and sharper version of "Puppet Up."
new-york home done
We wanted to premiere it in New York, because New York is sort of the home of the Jim Henson Company and it's sort of the tone and flavor, always, of the puppet work that we've done traditionally. And that's what brought us here and now we're here.
thinking puppets
I think it's a lot richer than what we call fleshy improv, I think it's very funny, puppet improv and fleshy improv.